Conservative moves stir Anglican troubles

THE worldwide Anglican church has received severe shocks as
English evangelicals threaten to break with liberal bishops and two
of the most famous American churches defect over homosexuality.

The coalition of English Anglicans produced a covenant promoting
informal networks among conservative Anglican groups that will
bypass institutional authorities.

The coalition, representing some 2000 parishes, plans to
withhold money from liberal dioceses and and defy "unreasonable
restrictions" by church authorities, even appointing and supporting
its own ministers.

"We can no longer be constrained by an over-centralised and
increasingly ineffective control that is stifling the natural
development of ministry," the covenant says.

In America, the congregations at Truro and Falls  both
founded before the American Revolution and where first US president
George Washington sometimes worshipped  decided to put
themselves under the authority of Nigerian archbishop Peter Akinola
in a move that will inflame passions in the deeply divided American
church.

Many other churches are considering joining them.

In other developments, the Anglican church in Tanzania 
where the world's Anglican leaders are due to meet in February
 has announced it will not accept money from supporters of
homosexuality, and the church in New Zealand is in uproar after the
Bishop of Dunedin, George Connor, ordained a gay man as deacon.

In Australia, leading liberals and evangelicals said
homosexuality had not threatened to divide the church here.

Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen, a leader of evangelicals in the
Western church, said Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams,
leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, could no longer avoid
decisions that would disappoint one side or both.

"His method has been to put off those choices and give people a
chance to reconcile, which has been sensible, but in the next 18
months he will have to make decisions that will lead to a great
deal of antagonism," he said.

Archbishop Jensen said the loss of the parishes in Virginia sent
a powerful message to the American church that the threats it faced
were internal, rather than external, while the evangelical covenant
in England was a signal that conservatives would stay in the church
but would be more politically active. "The church will be less easy
to govern than ever before."

Leading Australian liberal Andrew McGowan, warden of Trinity
College at Melbourne University, said there was more fall-out to
come.

He said it was difficult to predict whether the departure of the
American churches was "another round of dominoes or just a couple
of conservative churches having had enough and deciding to jump
ship".

"This bizarre concoction of an African bishop must have other
conservatives rolling their eyes."

The English covenant had received scathing criticism from
leading evangelicals, showing that the Church of England had a
strong core from all the main traditions. In Australia, Anglicans
wanted to hold things together. Liberals were more circumspect,
even though it meant they could not carry forward their agenda.